The Honda Insight and Toyota Prius are causing quite a commotion.
Both cars are gasoline-electric hybrids, each having both an electric
motor and an ultra-low-emission gasoline engine. The goal is to achieve
a very high level of fuel efficiency with almost zero pollution.

The Prius was the first gasoline-electric hybrid production vehicle,
having been released to Japanese consumers a bit more than a year ago.
It is a roomy, four-door, five-passenger vehicle slated to join Toyota's
U.S lineup in a few months. The Insight, however, is the first hybrid to
reach U.S consumersit's scheduled to be in showrooms now.

Both vehicles will be equipped with a high level of equipment and
priced in the $20,000 range. However, Honda's entry into the alternative
market, unlike the family-oriented Toyota, is a sleek and sporty
two-seater, reminiscent of its CRX car from a few years back. Expect to
be hearing a lot about both of these hybrid gasoline-electric
automobiles in the coming months.

And they're not the only alternatives to traditional gasoline-powered
cars now coming online for U.S. consumers. Next time you rent a car in
California, an electric carsuch as GM's EV1may well be among
your model options. Or, if you're buying a car these days, you could
choose a flexible-fuel vehicle that will run on either gasoline or
ethanol, such as a Chrysler minivan or a Ford Taurus.

"It's very evident that hybrids and alternative fuel vehicles are
coming to the market," says Michael Svestka, team leader of the
University of Illinois at Chicago 1999 Ethanol Vehicle Challenge team,
which won first prize in the national competition sponsored by the U.S.
Department of Energy. "If you think back five years, that wasn't the
case. [Now,] the option is there."

Indeed, a great deal of investment is currently going into research,
development and demonstration of cars that run on something other than
gasoline alone. The investment is being driven (pun intended) by a
variety of factors: environmental regulation, demand and competition
from overseas, and a desire to use less imported petroleum. Big
automakers and smaller supplier companies alike are striving to overcome
the challenges of creating alternative-fuel vehicles that Americans will
like as muchand buy as enthusiasticallyas their beloved
gasoline-powered cars.

All of this is good news for mechanical, electrical and chemical
engineers. To sweeten things even more, several Department of
Energy-sponsored programs are supporting students in their efforts to
learn about alternative-fuel vehicles. In all, opportunities in this
area look bright.

"I think we're just seeing the tip of the proverbial iceberg," says
Alex Gibson, Ph.D., a research engineer one year into his systems work
at the vehicle electronic systems department of Ford Research Lab in
Dearborn, Mich.

DRIVING DEMAND

Michael Seal, founder and director of the Vehicle Research Institute
of the Department of Engineering Technology at Western Washington
University, Bellingham, says U.S. environmental regulationswhich
the Japanese have embraced wholeheartedlyhave helped push
competitive development of alternative-fuel technologies.

"Regulations are passed (in the United States) and the Japanese
parliament adopts them, too, and refuses to back down," Seal says.
"They've consistently done that with emissions [laws] in California. If
you've sampled the air in Tokyo, you know they have a very serious
problem."

Gibson says he sees regulation-generated demand from Europe pulling
along alternative-fuel research here in the United States.

"Initially to help grow the market, we're working on smaller systems
for smaller cars that are very common in the European market," Gibson
says, noting that his manager had just returned from a Beijing meeting
addressing the topic of electric vehicles. "This is truly a global
effort."

Lessening Americans' dependence on oil from overseas is a major
reason the U.S. DOE has been a supporter of student alternative-fuel
vehicle competitions, according to Shelley Launey, director of the Clean
Cities Program for the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington, D.C.,
and the coordinator of DOE-sponsored alternative-fuel car competitions.

"If our mission is to build more efficient vehicles that use less
petroleum products, especially less imported petroleum products, what
better way to get things rolling than by getting students involved?" she
asks.

With so many good reasons for building alternative-fuel vehicles,
it's not surprising that the big automakers and a plethora of supplier
companies are taking up the charge, hiring team members and helping to
build what could be a major industry in the future. (To get a feel for
the number of players in this market, see the list of electric
vehicle-related companies at www.radix.net
or the list of methanol vehicle-related companies at
www.energy.ca.gov/afvs/m85/methanolcontacts.html.)

Seal says he's familiar with several smaller companies working on
batteries and related technologies, as well as motors for hybrid
electric vehicles and the producers of the alternative fuels themselves.
In addition to the large automakers, these groups can prove viable
places for graduating engineers to find work.

"A lot of groups are growing by leaps and bounds," says Ted Bohn, a
consulting engineer at the Advanced Powertrain Test Facility at Argonne
National Labs, Argonne, Ill., who's also affiliated with Power
Designers, a Madison, Wis., manufacturer of fast charge systems for
electric vehicle batteries.

AVAILABLE OPTIONS

Many great minds are working on alternative-fuel vehicles. And that's
a good thing, considering how difficult the pros and cons of the various
fuels can be to weigh. As an illustration of the kinds of issues that
arise in alternative fuel research, consider some of the pros and cons
of ethanol and natural gas, hybrid cars and fuel cells.

Svestka says one of the things he likes about ethanol is that the
fuel is derived from corn, which makes it a renewable resource. He
quotes a statistic that 78% of the carbon dioxide produced by burning
ethanol goes back into producing the next crop of corn from which the
next tank of ethanol would be made.

Svestka also thinks ethanol would be fairly easy for consumers to
adopt because, as a liquid at normal outside temperatures, it is
dispensed just like gasolinewith a hose and a pumpand many
stations already offer the option.

"Many consumers would like to continue to do what they're already
doingjust push the nozzle in," he says.

However, refueling also offers one of the drawbacks of
ethanolthe infrastructure isn't quite ready yet. There are many
stations across the United States and many around Chicago that can
accommodate ethanol distribution, Svestka says, but not so many as to
take a carefree driving tour of the country. "You have to plan for it
still, on the map. I don't know if you want to drive to the middle of
Montana."

Seal says his pick of the alternative fuels is natural gas,
especially in terms of a fuel to complement electricity in a hybrid
vehicle.

"We do our home heating with it," he says. "It's familiar and it's
everywhere. The distribution network is almost there. And only hydrogen
is cleaner."

While a natural gas pipeline is a part of our current infrastructure
in the United States, compressor pumps for putting the vapor into
vehicle fuel tanks are not yet commonplace, Seal notes. "Canada decided
to do it. They're ready."

Ethanol and natural gas are but two of many possibilities for
stand-alone fuels and for a fuel complementing electricity in hybrids.
Other fuels covered by the Alternative Fuels Data Center
(www.afdc.nrel.gov)
include biodiesel (mono alkyl esters), electricity, hydrogen, methanol, P-series
(blends of ethanol, methyltetrahydrofuran, pentanes with butanethe most
recently approved), and solar fuel.

The concept of hybrid electric vehicles is currently very popular.
Electricity provides the only zero-emission option (which makes it the
only fuel that meets some emissions standards), but it can give low
performance and is unlikely to be a favorite with consumers. Adding a
second fuel means the same car can have better range and power.

"With hybrids you can have good performance all the time," Seal says.

Fuel cells are often referenced as the currently unattainable ideal.
A fuel cell breaks hydrogen into protons and electrons. The electrons
flow out of the cell to be used as electricity, while the protons are
combined with oxygen to form water.

The big advantage of fuel cells over batteries is that fuel cells can
continue to produce electricity as long as hydrogen is
suppliedthey don't have to be replaced as often as batteries (when
the chemicals in batteries start losing life). In addition, "recharging"
fuel cells could be considerably easier than recharging batteries.

"A lot of people feel the fuel cell is the ultimate thing," Gibson
says, noting even the so-called "ideal" has challenges ahead. "There are
a lot of hurdles with fuel cells," including generating power rapidly
enough. "There's some hard work to get it to the performance you like
along with all the cost and packaging issues."

PREPPED FOR JOBS

Tough challenges are just what engineers like. To prepare a new
generation of engineers to tackle the challenges of alternative-fuel
vehicles, the DOE is supporting several university programs aimed at
helping universities turn out students with the appropriate skills.

For example, the Graduate Automotive Technology Education program
(GATE) focuses on several technologies critical to the development and
production of future automobiles. Ten universities (see
www.ipd.anl.gov/gate/schools.html)
have been chosen as Centers of Automotive Research in one of five technology
areas: fuel cells, hybrid drive trains and control systems, direct-injection
engines, lightweight materials, and energy storage. In addition to helping
fund the creation of the centers, the program also provides fellowship money
for graduate students earning advanced degrees in these areas.

The program was formed "to educate and train future scientists and
engineers who can accelerate the development and commercialization of
clean and efficient transportation technologies," says JoAnn Milliken.
Milliken is the program manager of GATE and a program manager for the
Transportation Fuel Cell Program, which supports industry and national
labs working on fuel cell technology for transportation applications.

DOE-sponsored national car competitions, such as the Ethanol
Challenge in which Svestka and his teammates had so much success, are
also helping prepare students for careers in the alternative-fuel
vehicle industry. The programs began in the late '80s with the Hybrid
Electric Vehicle Challenge, Launey says. "They've become increasingly
more sophisticated. They've changed from the single fuel" to hybrids, to
next year's competition: FutureTruck (www.futuretruck.org).

"Sometimes [in the competitions] we get to look at truly cutting-edge
technology," she says. "This year we had a school with a fuel-cell car."

The hands-on experience students get from these competitions can go a
long way toward helping them find a job in a related area upon
graduation, Launey says, noting that 65% of the students in the 1998
Ethanol Vehicle Challenge took jobs in the automotive industry.

"I don't know how an auto company could ask for any more from an
entry-level engineer" than to have the kinds of design, test and
experience they get from a car competition, Launey says. "They really
are prize recruits."

Svestka, who will graduate and look for a job in May 2000, says his
personal experience bears out the idea that students with competition
experience are ready for the alternative-fuel vehicle job market.

"They've got a very broad background in the fuel already. The
learning curve for someone like that is much less," he says. "I interned
this past summer at GM as a result of the challenge, working on an
ethanol vehicle that is expected to come to market in 2002. I foresee
the industry moving to alternative fuels in the new millennium. I'd be
happiest working for an alternative fuel section of an automaker."

Lisa Hochgraf makes words work for people through Top-Notch Text, a national writing and editing company.